Victor Cobo, 40, is a fine art photographer who grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Santa Rosa, then cut his teeth on photography in San Francisco.

He remembers being heavily influenced by a book on Diane Arbus, a photographer who was best known for her portraits of people living on the fringes of "normal" society. As a teenager, he began borrowing cameras. He and his buddies would party and experiment with creating theatrical images using costumes and other props.

"I think what inspires me the most when in San Francisco is the feeling of edginess on the streets," he says. "In contradiction to the happy-beautiful cliché that San Francisco has as a tourist destination, there is so much destitution as well. San Francisco is also a city where the outsiders of society make their home. It's a place where people come to live a lifestyle that might not be accepted in mainstream society. For me this provides an endless source of material to photograph. Photography for me is a sociological exploration of the unknown. A ticket into another world."

Cobo moved to New York during the summer of 2010, to experience life there and to make connections in the art world. He would find dominatrix models on the Internet and photograph them in their dungeons, all the while working odd jobs to pay for film and the processing of his projects. He plans to return to San Francisco this summer.

"Everyone is so focused on just trying to survive in New York these days," he says. "Often they commute 2-4 hours into Manhattan for incredibly low-paying jobs. People in NY live to work. People work to live in San Francisco."

"What attracts me to San Francisco is its inherent rebellious and liberal mind-set. Some might argue that it's a city that is a bit too accepting of deviant behavior. But I love it. Look how many counter-cultures began here. It is a haven for those not wanting to conform to the norms of American society. It created its own world from the rest of the United States. I really believe it still is that special place, a haven for those of us wanting to live a more non-conformist lifestyle."